Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a golf play assisting system for providing a golf player with helpful information for assisting him or her during a golf play, utilizing a mobile terminal.
Description of the Related Art
As such golf play assisting system, the present applicant once proposed a certain system, as disclosed in Japanese un-examined patent application publication No. 2014-14498, where an original image data of a turf or green shot by an image-taking device of a mobile terminal is processed using an image processing technique, and then the resultant processed image data is displayed on a display unit of the mobile terminal, thus enabling a golf player to accurately read a condition of the grain in great detail through a maximum use of mobile terminal.
Further, Japanese un-examined patent application publication No. 2007-164651 discloses an idea of producing such a realistic image of a green turf where two different textures of grain patterns are suitably blended in accordance with a shooting direction of a virtual camera.
Recently, however, there arises a new need to overcome the following drawbacks in such conventional golf play assisting systems.
Whilst the above-described conventional arts employ an image processor incorporated in the system thereof in order to produce a processed turf image where an original image is modified to highlight the grain in an easy-to-read manner, such images are nothing more than pseudo images that are obtained from original pictures, and hence players or users have difficulties getting an intuitive picture of the grain condition from those turf images shown on the display of the mobile terminal.
Also, Japanese un-examined patent application publication No. 2014-14498 discloses an idea of displaying slope information indicating a direction and/or slope of a turf surface as well as a processed turf image produced by an image processor. According to this conventional art, however, such turf image itself makes it still hard for players to read a grain condition in an intuitive manner if turf surface slope information is simply superimposed on the turf image. For this reason, players are not able to get an intuitive picture of the turf surface about where and how the turf surface is sloped, and what grain condition the turf surface has.